


you taste like sadness but darling so do i

by cxyst



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxyst/pseuds/cxyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[an au in which harry is a struggling street artist whose stomach always feels empty and louis is a uni student who feels like he's never taken a risk in his life]</p>
            </blockquote>





	you taste like sadness but darling so do i

Harry sets up outside the Met and slouches into his jacket. He lights up a cigarette with shaky fingers. It's getting to the end of Autumn and it's cold, and he fucking hates this part, sitting and staring at a blank piece of his thick, artist's paper for hours at a time, waiting for something to hit him and make him pick up his pencil. He tries to choose good locations to draw in, places that should be inspiring, but more often than not he ends up drawing the squashed cigarette butt at his feet, or the fluoro witches hats circling the steaming man-hole in the middle of 54th. He should have accepted, by now, the fact that he is attracted to the wrong things. The filthy underbelly, the New York half-life. He is off balance, out of whack. He has never been quite right.

Harry thinks he might be empty. He feels like his bones are hollow. His stomach twists itself up and eats him inside out. Even when he does have enough food, the ache is there. He always wants more. He is restless, hungry in a strange new way.

His art used to be enough - he could draw out his jitters, his constant edginess. Now he is just empty. He thinks he might be used up, burnt out. There's nothing to vent anymore - just this desperate, growing hunger for something /more/.  
He wants to get drunk. Just so he can be a little bit looser, feel a little less like himself. But even for him, it’s too early.

Instead, he watches the crowds walk past, absently sketches a crumpled Starbucks cup on the corner of his page. As always, there are unreasonable amounts of beautiful people around him. New York really is bursting with them. He sees women dressed in heels and long coats, hair bouncing and lips red; men in tailored suits and too-tight ties. He sees an endless parade of girls in the perfect colour jeans. Boys with their hair gelled just right. Most people here are all clean hands and shined-up shoes, never a loose thread. Most New Yorkers are perfectly put together from head to toe, because that's how you keep up in a city like this.

Of course, being the unwound person he is, he searches for the imperfections. He doesn't want clean-cut, he wants the misfits - the bad tattoos and regretful smiles and tattered shoes and fading purple hair. He wants the sick and twisted backstories; the bloody hangnail and the extra shot of tequila and the dirty guitar pounding out of a back-alley club; the broken hearts and the lives going nowhere and the lost eyes of that boy standing on the Met steps and-

God, that boy.

Harry is drawing before he realises it. The jawline first - angular and sharp; thin, light pencil lines - then the cut of his cheekbones, the soft flop of his fringe, his little button nose and sweeping eyelashes, the big eyes underneath, so blue that Harry can see the colour from where he sits. The boy is looking right at Harry now, must have felt his acid gaze, but Harry can't look away now, because this is the first time he has gotten even a proper rough sketch out today, and this boy is just so easy to draw. So Harry continues, eyes flicking madly between his paper and the boy. He scratches in his slim shoulders, the way his massive jacket falls far too long - almost to his knees - and the way his lips part a little as he stares right back at Harry. Harry's pencil strokes get harder, darker, more defined, and then finally he can take his eyes off the boy for more than a second to begin to neaten it up. He fixes the right side of the boy's hair, adds in the eyebrow piercing he didn't notice in his first frantic once-over. Harry looks back down at his paper and presses harder along the curve of the boy's waist, trying to get the angles just right, and then when he looks up again the boy is walking towards him.

His voice is light - almost flutey, almost feminine - when he asks, 'Can I see?'

Harry sniffs, thumbs over his bottom lip. His eyes flick up and down, and yes, he's checking the guy out pretty blatantly, but it's allowed, it's /artistic license/. Kind of.

He likes that the boy isn't all neat, that he looks a bit rough around the edges. He likes that he has too many lines around his eyes for someone so young, and that he is instinctively slouching, and that all his clothes look a little too big.

'Uhm, one second,' Harry says, and goes back to his paper. Now that the boy is up close, he can properly capture the lines of his eyebrows, the scattered stubble on his strong jawline, the nervous quirk of his lips.

He has pretty features - small hands, long eyelashes. Eyes the colour of the Hudson in summer.

Finally, Harry turns the paper around.

'Wow,' the boy breathes after a second. Then he straightens up. 'I mean, really, wow. Great job.'

'You're pretty,' Harry says, because he has always been embarrassingly honest.

He flushes a light pink. 'Thank you.'

Harry smiles a little. The boy is looking at the drawing again.

'Do you sell these?'

'Uh, I- Yeah.'

Nobody has asked to buy his stuff for a long time. (He's been struggling through, to put it politely. He tries to convince himself that he likes living in his mate's spare room.)

The boy nods quickly, and slides his hands into his jacket pockets. He is a bit awkward, but to Harry it's more than a little endearing. But then again, he may be a little biased. This boy's face did just pull him out of artist's block, and will probably be providing for him to buy a halfway decent lunch today.

'How much?' The boy gestures to Harry's paper.

He shrugs, squints at the drawing again. 'I can draw you a better one if you- I mean this one's a bit rushed, I-'

'No, no, I like this one.'

He smiles, and Harry thinks, shit, this boy is really, really pretty. He wonders if he is actually as small as he looks, wants to stand up and see if he will fit into his arms like he thinks he might.

Harry thumbs at his bottom lip again and tucks his fingers up into his sleeves. 'Twenty?'

'Done,' the guy smiles wider, digs deeper in his pocket for his wallet.

He counts out the money in one dollar bills, and makes up the last two dollars in coins.

'Uni student?' Harry guesses as he counts, and the boy chuckles.

'Got me.'

Harry smiles with one side of his mouth, hides it in his jacket collar as he leans forward to pick up his pencil again.

'What's your name?'

'Louis.'

He scrawls 'Louis by Harry' and the date at the bottom of the page and tugs it off his stand to give to the boy, who now has a name. Louis.

Louis. Harry sighs around the name, breathes it right down to his toes. Louis.

'Thanks,' Louis looks at the paper, 'Harry.'

'No problem,' Harry says, sitting back in his chair and half-waving awkwardly. 'Have a good one.'

And then he watches Louis walk off, hunched against the chill with Harry's drawing tucked carefully into his jacket. As soon as he's out of sight, Harry turns to a fresh page and starts another drawing of him from memory.

He bites his lip until it cracks and blunts his pencil what feels like a million times, but for the first time in a long while, he doesn't feel so empty.

~

Louis gets home and sticks the drawing on his wall, next to the Cat Power poster he stole from his sister before he moved to New York. Then he puts the kettle on the stove and digs another jumper out of his dirty laundry pile, because somehow the inside of his apartment is even colder than outside. He feels like he’s living in the fucking middle ages, but that’s not really new.

His apartment is tiny – one room, with a little tiled area in the corner that is meant to be a kitchen. Frankly, it hardly passes for an apartment at all, but it’s better than a lot of his Uni friends can do. So, he sleeps on an old double mattress on the floor with far too many blankets to make up for the lack of heating, and sometimes (most of the time) he has to rely on candles and the gas stove, but he has the building’s free internet, and he can smoke on the fire escape, and if he holds the rail tight, leans right out, he can almost see the Empire State.

It’s alright. It is.

He makes his tea and snuggles down in his bed, a textbook beside him and his laptop on his knees, and tries to get started on the essay he’s been assigned. He always tries to get onto his school-work early, but as usual, it only takes him about ten minutes to get side tracked.

He digs through the yellowing Rolling Stone back-issues stacked beside his bed, reading about last year’s ‘biggest upcoming bands’ that he never heard about again. Then he puts on The Rolling Stones, and gets stuck on that strange side of YouTube for an hour and a half, watching videos of unknown bands in seedy clubs, all too-long hair and broken guitars. Then he makes more tea, spikes it with the last of his gin, and clicks onto Sports centre to watch football for another hour. He looks up at Harry’s drawing too many times before he finally pulls it down again.

It’s a lovely picture. Louis looks tired and tousled and small, and he really shouldn’t like it – has always prided himself on being put-together – but it’s more real than any photograph of himself he’s seen. His eyes are a little sad, a little lost. He guesses he was feeling like that today, has been for a while. It’s hard, being alone in such a big city. He knows enough people his age, but in between the indie rock fans, the 5th Avenue penthouse owners, the Brooklyn poets and the chess club, he is lost. He still wears his father’s hand-me-downs. He is just a guy from the suburbs, studying economics in New York because he wants a decent job, who feels like he’s never taken a risk in his life.

He wonders what Harry’s life is like. Probably a lot cooler than his. Louis remembers the way he looked out in front of the Met – rough and restless and dishevelled. He bets he has a big studio apartment in Brooklyn, with a gallery downstairs, with drawings like this one blown up big and beautiful on the walls. He probably goes out a lot, to underground gigs and 24 hour pizza places, makes new friends every night.

If he’s honest, Louis kind of hoped his life might be like that when he moved to New York. He had daydreams about going a little off the rails, finally breaking some rules. Going out dancing at 3am and kissing all the long-haired boys as he could get his hands on and never apologising. But he’s never been like that. He should have known a city couldn’t change him.

Louis feels suddenly bitter, on edge. He pulls on a beanie and socks and creeps out onto the fire escape, lights a cigarette to calm down. He stares at the gaudy orange smog and listens to the traffic noise and his head pounds. His life is a slow fire, he thinks. It is idling, saving fuel. He is his parent’s ideal son. He is living safe.

Tomorrow, he thinks, he will skip class. He will do something crazy.  
Or maybe he’ll just go to the Met again. Which is honestly crazy enough.

~

Harry sits on the kitchen bench and watches another party tornado around his and Zayn’s flat. Someone is playing terrible music, jumpy electro, and they won’t clean up in the morning. He knows they both drink too much and he is no help paying the bills, and he knows the cupboards are empty. He knows his stomach is empty, but he can’t bring himself to care. His thoughts are roundabout, a buzzing alarm. The alcohol sets him alight, inside and out, a sluggish, scorching heat. Harry wants that boy, the one from the Met steps. He wants him and his sad blue eyes, right now, god, he wants him. He wants ice cream and love letters. He wants to draw Louis a love letter; he wants to sketch ‘I love you’ on his collarbone, scribble ‘please never leave’ in the spaces behind his ribcage. He is desperate and burning, wanting. He wants him right now, right this second, but he doesn’t know how to find him, and he almost cries as that knowledge hits him. He kicks at the cupboards and lets his head fall back against the wall and laughs instead. He looks at the empty Vodka bottle in his hand and wonders when that happened, where all the stuff inside went. He decides he doesn’t care. He wants. He wants more than he will ever be able to have.

‘I feel warm,’ he says aloud. Nobody can hear him over the music, but he continues. ‘I feel like love,’ he smiles, wide and crooked, ‘I’m going to bed.’

So Harry goes to bed and buries himself in blankets. He dreams of heat and fire and August asphalt, a pair of horizon blue eyes.

~

Louis goes back to the Met the next afternoon and sits on the steps. It’s even colder than the day before, and Louis huddles down in his jacket and flicks his fringe out of his eyes. He has brought his required reading for class, because he reasons that skipping a lecture doesn’t mean he has to fall behind.

He’s still being rebellious, he is.

Louis is up to the third chapter of ‘General Theory of Employment Interest and Money’ when Harry shows up. He pretends not to see; sneaks quick glances through his eyelashes as Harry sits down on a concrete bench and balances his notebook on his knees. He looks hung-over as hell, from what Louis can gather. His light green eyes are bloodshot and droopy, his hair is sticking up at the front, and he winces every time he swallows. He is still beautiful. Loose-limbed and listless and gentle, but a little bit unruly.

He spots Louis pretty quickly. Louis watches him out of the corner of his eye. Sees him pick up his pencil, sit up a little straighter. He can’t help the flush that spreads across his cheeks as he sees Harry start to draw, head bent low, teeth working at his swollen bottom lip. Louis blinks fast, tries to concentrate on his book for a minute before he finds that he’s read two paragraphs and doesn’t remember even a tiny bit of either. He gives up and lifts his head to properly look at Harry. Harry smiles crookedly at him, nods a little in greeting, then goes back to his drawing. Louis lets out a breathy half-laugh and pushes himself up off the stairs to walk over.

‘Morning,’ Harry says huskily, without looking up. The smile is still in his voice.

‘Hi,’ Louis replies. He feels like a little girl; his heart is going at a million miles per hour.

‘You stalking me or what?’

Louis flushes. ‘’M not the one drawing pictures of strangers for a living.’

Harry’s eyes flick up and he laughs. ‘Fair enough,’ he shifts over on the bench to make room for Louis. ‘Could hardly call it a living though.’

Louis sits down facing Harry and tucks his knees into his chest. ‘I would have thought you’d do alright,’ he cranes his neck to try and look at Harry’s paper, but he tilts it away. ‘You’re very good.’

‘Believe it or not,’ Harry is grinning at his page now, leaning down to sketch a few more light pencil strokes, ‘unqualified street artists are not exactly in high demand in the New York art scene.’

Louis shrugs, smiling too. ‘Well, they should be.’

They sit in silence for a few more seconds, and then Harry lifts his pencil.

‘Can I see?’ Louis asks immediately.

‘Patience,’ Harry smirks, shooting him a sideways look. He scrawls something at the bottom of the page, before tilting it towards Louis.

It’s him, of course, huddled into himself on the steps. He looks little and pretty, fringe flopping in his eyes, jawline sharp. His jacket is drawn with thick, dark lines, shaded in so it looks like it’s almost swamping him. His fingers are long and delicate, curled around his book, and his eyes are big and tinted lightly. Harry has written, ‘lost boy louis’ underneath.

‘This is amazing,’ Louis looks up at Harry with wide eyes. ‘Really.’

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’

Louis swallows hard, taken by surprise. ‘Uh, sure, yeah.’

~

Harry takes Louis to a place near his apartment, a tiny café-slash-bookshop in New York’s back pocket. It’s all mismatched chairs and milk steam and coffee aromas, with towering bookshelves along the walls. He and Zayn have shaken off a hundred hang-overs here. The lady at the register greets him by name as he walks in, tells the barista to start on his black coffee straight away. Louis orders a cappuccino and gives Harry a look as they sit down.

‘Are you aware of how stereotypical it is for the poor, tortured artist to order a black coffee?’

Harry raises an eyebrow. ‘Like it’s not expected that the poor, tortured Uni student orders a cappuccino?’

And Louis laughs, and then their drinks come and they sip and talk about their lives as poor, tortured citizens of New York.

Harry likes Louis, a whole fucking lot. He’s beautiful and perpetually nervous, and nothing like the people Harry would usually go for, but he thinks maybe that’s why he’s already falling so hard. There is something about Louis that is addictive. He wants to crack him open, see him loose and alive.

Harry thinks that for the first time he is the bad influence.

‘Do you want to come out with me tonight?’ He asks without thinking.

‘Yes,’ Louis replies immediately. ‘Where?’

‘I don’t know,’ Harry shrugs, ‘We’ll find something.’

~

It is already getting dark when they leave – the hazy sky glowing orange from the city lights. Harry leaves his notebook and pencil in the tiny lobby of his apartment block, and they head up a street and around a corner and arrive on the corner of 34th and Park. Louis slips his little hand into Harry’s as they dart between cabs to the other side of the street, and Harry smiles down at him. He gestures to the row of lit-up clubs and bars ahead of them.

‘Pick a door, any door.’

Louis shakes his head and laughs and drags Harry into the first place they come to. It’s small and already busy, and the music is shit and the drinks are expensive but Louis already feels electric. He buys the first three rounds of shots, watching Harry’s cheeks flush darker with every one, and then they are dancing.

He thinks this might be it.

He can’t go back to Economics after this. His heart is syncing with the bass-line of this bullshit song and Harry’s gaze is finding its way under his skin, embedding itself deep in his bones. He feels vital, alive, like someone has finally turned him on. He can’t take his eyes off Harry; his red cheeks, his sweaty, unruly curls, his eyes – so, so green under the bright, flickering lights – the way glimpses of his tattoos peek out when his t-shirt slips off his collarbone.

He feels like a filthy mess of a boy. He feels like he has come apart at the seams. Everything is pouring out. He is a crescendo, a deafening drone. He feels feckless and silly and vibrating with energy. He feels like the version of himself he has always wanted to be. His fingers are trembling. He is science like this. An atom, separating. He can’t remember his own name.

Harry’s touch hums in his bloodstream and Louis feels his breathing shake and hitch. He curls his fingers around Harry’s bony wrist, feels his pulse thump against his fingers, and shifts his hips closer to him. With that wide, crooked grin, Harry slides his hands down to his little waist and slides his thigh in between Louis’ and pulls him tight against him.

Then he’s bending his head and catching Louis’ lips against his own and it’s soft and dirty and dizzying and-

Yeah, this is definitely it.

~

After another half-hour they stumble their way out of the club and back to Harry’s apartment, and it takes them fifteen minutes longer than before because they have to keep stopping. Harry presses Louis into the traffic light pole and drags his mouth down his neck, lips curling into a smirk against the flushed skin when he feels his breath quicken. They miss the signal to walk. Louis pulls Harry in by the lapel of his jacket on the busy sidewalk, licks into his mouth slowly as they get jostled and bumped by pedestrians. Finally they are at Harry’s door, and Harry holds Louis against it and tugs his bottom lip with his teeth and breathes hot against his cheek.

He says, ‘I’m a drop-kick.’ He kisses Louis hard again, sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, pulls away, says, ‘I’m a nowhere.’ His voice is low and rough. ‘I live in my best mate’s spare room, and I drink too much, and you were the first person to buy my art for a whole year. I’m always hungry.’

Louis curls his fingers into Harry’s t-shirt, pulls him in tight, kisses him again.

He says, ‘I think you are just what I need.’


End file.
